On the classification of plane graphs representing structurally stable rational Newton flows (Q2277490)

A connected plane graph G for which the following conditions hold, is called a Newton graph: Condition 1. At any vertex of G, the angle between (different) edges with this vertex in common is well-defined and does never vanish. - Condition 2. For any finite face of G, the sum of all angles spanning a sector of this face at the vertices is equal to \(2\pi\). Using general properties of graphs, a more precise description of Newton graphs is given in definition 3.1. The authors investigate the class of rational Newton flows, and therefore they consider the differential equation \(dz/dt=-f(z)/f'(z)\), where \(f(z)=p_ n(z)/q_ m(z)\) and \(p_ n(z)\), \(q_ m(z)\) are polynomials (of degree n and m, respectively) of the complex variable z. The right hand side of this equation and sometimes the flow given by it, will be called the rational Newton flow and will be denoted by N(f). N(f) is called structurally stable, if under sufficiently small perturbations of the coefficients of \(p_ n\) and \(q_ m\) the topological features of the phase portraits of the resulting Newton flows remain the same. In the special case \(n>m\) Newton graphs G(f) may be associated with a structurally stable rational Newton flow N(f) and among other results it is shown that for any Newton graph G there exists such an N(f) so that \(G\sim G(f)\) [Theorem 1.1(a)]. The theorems A and B yield the main results of this paper; there are given necessary and sufficient conditions for an arbitrary plane graph G in order to be topological equivalent with a Newton graph. These conditions are inequalities which for instance for all cycles \(C\subset G\) imply \(n(C)<r(C)<n(C)+l(C)\) \([n(C)=number\) of G-vertices inside C; \(l(C)=number\) of G-vertices on C; \(r(C)=number\) of G-faces inside C]. The proof is a very extensive one and requires numerous lemmas which yield further structural properties of G. In a special chapter the structure of Newton graphs in relationship with the study of certain dynamical systems are investigated where especially balanced graphs take place. Finally, the existence of a polynomial algorithm is proved which enables to detect whether an arbitrary connected plane graph is equivalent with a Newton graph or not.